Soft Light in Nighttime
by Melee
Summary: (revised) A short, meandering one shot after dusk. Ambiguity abounds. Hints of SagexRowen.


disclaimer: Ronin Warriors is not mine but they have my love.

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Soft Light in Nighttime  
by Melee

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Rowen folded his arms across the back of the chair, watching the dark room and the young man behind the desk. "I wonder if Kento wasn't the only one disillusioned," he said, speaking, he knew, mostly to himself. "Except, I don't _really _wonder – I know he wasn't. I kind of impressed myself, every day that I got up and kept fighting anyway. Like I'd stay up at night, trying to find a reason to keep at it, and then day would come with another somebody trying to kill us and I'd realize I didn't need one."

The curtains were drawn, keeping out even the light of the newly risen moon. It wasn't quite peaceful because Rowen could hear the grade school girls in the background, laughing and shrieking their delight. He wasn't certain why he'd decided to say what he did, about the war, only that Sage seemed so... lost in himself, running his fingers down the spine of the old books in his grandfather's office while he sat in that big chair, saying nothing even while the party went on downstairs. 

With his pale hair and ghostly complexion, he was the only thing of light in the dark room. Even in pitch black, Rowen knew, some radiance would still cling to Sage's smooth skin, a sign of Halo's constant watch over its bearer. 

"You were my reason to fight," Sage said quietly, out of the silence.

"You mean us? All of us?" Rowen asked, confused.

"No," Sage said, "You."

Then he stood because his mother was calling them downstairs, and walked past Rowen, seemingly no more unsettled by saying such a thing than Rowen would have been to hear Ryo say that soccer was his favorite sport.

Rowen blinked at the closed drapes. "_Me_?" he wondered to the empty room.

He snuck up behind Sage while the blond watched the birthday party unfold in the dojo. "I'm the reason...?" he said, hinting, watching Sage for the slightest discomfort.

Sage's eyes flickered sideways to Rowen's, unexpectedly harsh. Something about their expression told Rowen that Sage thought he was being childish. Sage turned his attention back to the younger girls playing board games on the floor. 

He said unexpectedly, "Because you're sane."

Rowen laughed awkwardly. "I am? Do you know a lot of people who aren't?" He tucked his fingers under his arms, hugging his chest like he felt a phantom chill. 

Now Sage's face did tighten, a little shift around the eyes, a thinning of the lips. Imperceptible really, unless you were Rowen and knew Sage's face like the back of your hand.

Sage stepped away from the wall sharply, turning and walking from the room with no hint that he wanted Rowen to follow. This time there was no pretense that he had left for any other reason than escape.

Rowen, of course, followed him, curiosity and concern mixing until they could no longer be distinguished.

"I know one person," Sage said, sitting in his grandfather's garden in the twilight. Rowen hadn't spoken. Sage must have known he would follow, must have been waiting for it. "I'm not."

"Not sane?" Rowen said, recalling what Sage had said in the dojo not thirty seconds ago. He wondered if he was doomed to forever parrot Sage's words back at him or if one day he would have enough answers so that Sage's statements were not questions in themselves.

He watched his friend brush long fingers against a flower hanging over the stone bench. The movements were slow, dramatic, like something out of a play. "No," he agreed. "Not sane. Nobody is sane, but..." he stopped, looking back at Rowen, with the slightest frown on his face. He took a slow breath, his chest rising as he took in the cool, fresh air of the green place around them. 

He looked as if he meant to say something that would take either great effort or great time, but he said nothing, holding the breath within him in the same way he held the stem of the flower between his fingers, so carefully, his expression of indifference rebuilding itself across his delicate features. Little drifts of light moved across the night, like fireflies or dandelion puffs, settling into Halo's glow and leaving it again, paying homage to his power like the waves did to Cye, rising up on windless days when he walked near the shore.

Rowen stepped over the bench, sitting towards the blond, straddling the stone seat beneath him. He did not feel impatient anymore, realizing that Sage was being neither enigmatic nor arrogant, just... confused. It was a very adolescent thing to do.

His knee brushed Sage's thigh, and he dared to place a hand at the other's narrow waist. Sage's head came up suddenly, icy eyes narrowing indignantly behind yellow hair.

"You said I was sane," Rowen reminded him, not certain what he hoped to gain by it.

Sage hesitated. "You... make sense," he admitted. Rowen swallowed, feeling the warmth that a stupid compliment from Sage could cause working its way up his spine. Sage put a hand on his wrist, and Rowen's stomach turned to lead in anticipation.

Sage frowned, seeing that want in Rowen's face, and his fingers tightened, pushing back Rowen's hand as he stood. "We should go in," he said flatly. "My sister will want to know what I bought her for her birthday."

Then he was gone, something inevitable about his absence. Like every other time Rowen had learned something secret, something he shouldn't have, Sage had vanished, leaving only imaginary fireflies in his wake. 

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o_o

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An ambiguous, five minute ramble. I felt guilty to have posted something so stupid about Rowen and Sage a little while ago and just decided to try to... write something more interesting.


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